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By Richard Amberg

While the old-time melter was satisfied to bring his metal out in the desired condition, and therefore took care to have the slag liquid enough, the importance of a thorough knowledge of the slag is at present recognized in all up-to-date melting-shops. Formerly slag or cinder was considered a necessary evil, accumulating in some mysterious way wherever a man was striving to produce a clean metal. Nowadays we deliberately aim at a well-defined slag, which varies with the nature of the process and the product. In steel-making we need slag for two main purposes, namely, refining and protecting the metal. To refine metal, essentially oxidizing and reducing processes are required, while to protect the metal we need a reducing or, still better, a neutral atmosphere. Although an absolutely neutral condition between steel, on one side, and the containing vessel and the slag, on the other, is an imaginary conception, the various furnaces in use for the production of liquid steel maybe arranged with respect to the attainment of this ideal in about the following order of merit: converter, open-hearth, crucible, and electric furnace. In dealing with the subject we will find it convenient to avail ourselves of the terms of physical chemistry, which yield a simple conception of the matter and an expedient way of expression. Slag and metal at large are not mixable with each other, and we will therefore call them the two " immiscible phases," though there are certain compounds which dissolve in both phases under conditions to be considered later. Reactions be-

Jan 1, 1913

By W. R. Wawersik, A. M. Starfield

The classical approach to room-and-pillar mine design in flat-lying, tabular ore bodies limits itself to the special case of an extensive and uniform system of pillars. Each pillar is then assumed to carry the same load, and this load is readily calculated from the extraction ratio e and the weight of the overburden : average pillar stress = [ ] where H is depth below surface, p is average density of overburden, and g is acceleration due to gravity. The average pillar load does not, in this case, depend on the mechanical properties of either the pillars or the surrounding rock mass. The only relevant physical property of the pillars is their compressive strength, (i.e., the maximum load-carrying ability) and the criterion for design is that the average pillar stress should not exceed this strength. The wider the pillar, the greater its strength, and the design of the system is concerned with reconciling this increase in strength to the requirements of roof control so as to optimize extraction.l Any departure from a uniform distribution of pillar loads invalidates the classical approach. Such departures may, for instance, be brought about by: (1) a nonuniform layout of pillars and remnants resulting from selective mining, (2) variations in geology which result in gross changes in the properties of part of the seam or the host rock, (3) deliberate use of abutment support in narrow panels, and (4) the use of yielding pillars for local roof support in conjunction with barrier pillars to carry the overburden load.

Jan 1, 1972

By Edward H. Robie

AT a recent meeting of the AIME Board there was considerable discussion of a suggestion that companies should be more interested in promoting AIME membership among their employes. The advocate of this idea argued that companies benefit greatly if their employes are active AIME members, so even on purely a selfish basis they should use various means to encourage membership. Also he argued that companies in general make no contribution to the support of the AIMS although benefiting from its work, so should not object to making more of a contribution, financial or otherwise, than they do. One Director stated that an investigation had developed the fact that a large majority of members felt it unwise for employers to pay the initiation fees or dues of employes. They felt that AIMS membership should be on a purely personal basis; that the rewards of active membership were sufficient so that it is a good investment for a man in developing his own professional stature, presumably resulting in an increase in salary sooner, or in greater amount, than would otherwise be the case. If an employer paid a member's dues or initiation fee the member would take less interest in the Institute. But this Director felt that an employer should otherwise encourage his employes to join the Institute, attend its meetings, and write papers based on company work for presentation and publication. Another Director reported that his company pays the expenses of AIME members in its employ to meetings; the company also encourages nonmembers to attend AIME meetings but does not pay their expenses unless they present papers of interest to the company. Another Director, representing a supplier, stated that his company's policy was to send some of its staff to all AIME meetings at which papers of interest were to be presented or at which valuable contacts could be made.

Jan 1, 1952

By S. F. Emmons

THE first paper which appears in the published Transactions of our Institute is that read by our respected Secretary at its first meeting in Wilkes-Barre, in May, 1871. It is entitled The Geological Distribution of Mining Districts in the United States, and presents a brief but masterly review of what was known of the distribution of our deposits of useful minerals, particularly the metals, not only from a geographical but from .a geological stand-point. At the request of Dr. Raymond, I agreed, somewhat hastily, perhaps, to write for this occasion a brief sketch of the geological distribution of the deposits of the useful metals in this country, in the light of the increased knowledge of the present day. In the time given no personal investigation was possible, and as it was therefore out of the question to attempt to make anything that could be considered an original contribution to the history of our ore-deposits, I have been obliged to limit myself to an examination of such published data within my reach as bore upon this subject, and could be consulted in the brief time I have been able to give to it. Had the geological investigations undertaken by the Tenth Census been continued systematically by the United States Geological Survey or by the Eleventh Census, it might have been possible to make a fairly-complete review of the subject. As it is, the principal result of my examination 1 has been to show how very unequal

Jan 1, 1913

By B. Bernstrom

A 22-ft diam, 7-ft long, wet autogenous grinding mill was installed in the new Cretaceous plant of the Jones & Laughlin Steel Corp. to prepare crude iron ore for concentration in spirals and flotation cells. The paper describes the flowsheet and gives a description of the operating and metallurgical results that have been obtained. These results include capacity, horsepower, operating problems and a comparison of pilot plant results with those obtained in commercial operation. The Cretaceous plant at the Hill Annex mine of the Jones & Laughlin Steel Corp. was designed with a wet autogenous mill for grinding low grade iron ore so that it could be concentrated by spirals and flotation cells. The plant, on the west end of the Minnesota's Mesabi Range, went into operation in June 1961, and preliminary operating and metallurgical information describing the performance of this mill can now be given. The crude is lean ore from the Cretaceous iron foundation. This formation is a beach deposit of Cretaceous age that overlies the Precambrian direct shipping and concentrating ores. This rock in nature is not extremely hard but is quite resilient, resisting blasting in mining and size reduction in milling. It contains hematite as water-rounded particles and other fragments of the underlying iron formation and adjacent rocks cemented together by a high alumina-silica ferruginous matrix. It is interspersed with hard dense hematite agglomerates and also contains granite pebbles and boulders that were not cleaned off during removal of the surface. It has a 3.48 sp gr and in the stockpile the material consists of frag-

Jan 1, 1962

By David Cole

AT the time flotation appeared upon the metallurgical horizon in Arizona, the writer, under the direction of Dr. Ricketts, was engaged in remodeling and enlarging the No. 6 Concentration Plant of the Arizona Copper Co. at Morenci, and the work had been in progress nearly a year before the Inspiration experiments with flotation had disclosed the revolution in concentration that was at that timè impending. The simplified flowsheet worked out for the remodeling of the Morenci plant had been based upon the removal of the freed metal in a minimum number of stages by treatment upon tables equipped with Butchart riffles, the latter being adapted to accomplish both classification of feed and removal of the metal at one operation, substantially as described in my previous paper.1 The scheme of treatment for the slime was based upon the well-known fact that after copper sulphides, such as chalcocite and chalcopyrite, etc., are reduced to a certain extremely fine state of comminution they are definitely beyond the reach of separation upon any of the concentrating devices then known. By using drag-belt classifiers (which served as conveyors as well as separators), the overflow would be of the usual "slimes" class. Experiment had shown that when these drag-belt overflows were, properly diluted (that is, to about 5 to 7 per cent. solids in the feed under treatment) . the very fine sand, and especially the very fine but still granular sulphide particle's, would, if given a short distance to fall, quickly settle out in prime condition to yield an excellent recovery on vanners; a further valuable feature would be that the very fine non-separable final overflow tonnage might be discharged direct to tailing, thus conserving space requirements so as to permit within the old building, without embarrass-ment, the increase of capacity required.

Jan 9, 1916

By C. G. Dunn, P. K. Koh

THE primary recrystallization texture in cold-rolled silicon iron, which is the matrix texture for developing the Goss texture or the cube-on-edge texture by secondary recrystallization at temperatures near 900°C,1-5,21 has not been adequately described. Thus from the present available information, it is not possible to explain satisfactorily both the grain-growth selectivity of the matrix and the often observed magnetic torque curve, which itself provides some information on the texture. Also lacking is information on the special annealing texture that develops in this material when the annealing temperature is 1200°C or higher and the rate of rise to temperature is extremely rapid. From the work of May and Turnbull5 and from unpublished work, it was known that isothermal annealing near 1200°C tends to reduce the extent of secondary recrystallization and that a much weaker cube-on-edge texture results if appreciable normal grain growth replaces secondary recrystallization. Koh and Dunn6,7 have obtained additional information on complex primary recrystallization textures from further studies made after normal grain growth. In these instances the initial textures were retained during normal grain growth. A similar result reasonably could be expected in the present study except for the presence of a grain growth ihibitor1-5,8,9.21 and its tendency to allow only a few grains to grow. However, any information on the orientations of grains in the special annealing texture, even if far from representative of the initial matrix texture, would provide useful information on the nature of the matrix texture. In the present texture study the method of Newkirk and Bruce,10 which is based on the methods of Geisler" and Schwartz, 12 is used to obtain a complete (110) pole figure of the primary recrystallization texture. The high-temperature annealing texture is determined simply from the orientations of a large number of selected grains. The kinetic nature of the process that produces the annealing texture is treated elsewhere13 and it is shown that a form of secondary recrystallization with a very high rate of nucleation occurs during rapid annealing at high temperatures. EXPERIMENTAL PROCEDURE Commercial 0.014-in. cold-rolled silicon iron strip (3.16 wt pct Si), prepared by two stages of cold rolling with an intermediate short anneal, was given a decarburizing 3-min anneal at 800°C. Me-tallographic studies indicated complete recrystallization. Short-time anneals at 900° C and at higher temperatures proved that secondary recrystallization had not begun at 800°C, in fact, the short additional anneals were still in the induction period of secondary recrystallization. A rapid rise to an annealing temperature of 1260°C (2300°F) was obtained in a BaC12and NaCl fused salt bath. The structures that resulted from anneals in the range 12- to 1000-sec duration were relatively finegrained, even though the growth was a form of exaggerated grain growth13 or secondary recrystallization with a high nucleation frequency.= Many of the grains were large enough for an X-ray study using a 5-mil X-ray beam. A transmission Laue Camera and an optical-mechanical stage for moving the grains into the X-ray beam were used. A total of 325 grains were X-rayed in this manner and the grain orientations determined. Complete (110) pole figures were obtained for the primary recrystallization texture using CoKa radiation at 30 kv in the back-reflection range, such as (220) for (110) poles, as described recently by Newkirk and Bruce.10 The low voltage serves to reduce the spurious white radiation to a minimum. A filter of 0.001-inch iron foil was located in front of the detector slit for transmission and in front of the beam slit for back reflection. A new and improved specimen holder extended the useful tilting angle range for transmission to 70 deg instead of 60 deg as previously reported.' A torque magnetometer was used to obtain the magnetic torque curves for a number of l-in. diam disk specimens. RESULTS The (110) pole figure of the material after recrystallization at 800°C is shown in Fig. 1. The positions of the pole concentrations are found to be

Jan 1, 1961

THOMAS L. WATSON,* Charlottesville, Va. (written discussion ? ).¬Sphalerite, as is well known, occurs not only as a common constituent of many types of ore deposits formed under widely varying geologic conditions, but its sulphide mineral associates comprise a goodly number of species. In the investigation by Mr. Teas, data were obtained from a mineralographic study of about 200 ore specimens from 43 different localities grouped according to their genesis as follows: (1) Contact-metamorphic deposits, (2) deep-vein zone deposits, (3) intermediate-vein zone deposits, (4) shallow-vein zone deposits, (5) meteoric water deposits. .The object of the study was to determine the relations of sphalerite to the associated sulphide minerals and their possible genetic significance. As a result of the investigation, Mr. Teas has deduced several important conclusions. Probably the one of largest interest and value was that sphalerite formed from magmatic waters, including contact-metamorphic, deposits, could be distinguished, for the cases investigated at least, from sphalerite formed from meteoric waters, by development in the former of minute triangular or rectangular dots or stringers of chalcopyrite. Although chalcopyrite inclusions in sphalerite had been noted by previous observers, the probable significance of their apparent general occurrence in sphalerite of certain types of ore deposits and their absence from others was unknown. The large number of ore specimens studied from more than 40 different localities in the United States and foreign countries, representing the principal genetic types of sphalerite-bearing deposits, gives considerable weight to the conclusions reached by the author. Should the conclusion drawn by Mr. Teas become generally applicable, a laboratory criterion of much value will have been established for distinguishing between sphalerite formed from juvenile and that from meteoric waters. The principle seems applicable not only to sulphide deposits in which sphalerite is the principal constituent, but to those in which it occurs as a very subordinate one, as shown by the study of ore specimens from one of the principal pyrite mines in Virginia. It may be possible also that the principle will have important application in differentiating primary from secondary sphalerite occurring in the same deposit formed from magmatic waters, although there have-been comparatively few well-

Jan 4, 1918

By E. L. Estabrook

Oil companies operating in foreign countries have made increased use during 1930 of cooperative agreements in prospecting unproven territory and in developing proven territory. A considerable proportion of the existing foreign fields are held under single ownership and have been developed as units. The operating companies seek to maintain this condition by acquiring land in large blocks or by merging smaller concessions under unit operating agreements. Your committee has secured a number of reports on foreign non-competitive operations and a valuable formal paper which deals with the Golden Lane of Mexico.l 0. B. Knight has drawn some valuable comparisons concerning costs of development and ultimate production between a certain competitive area and another noncompetitive area along that strip of rich producing territory. After discussing details of production, numbers of wells and cost of drilling and production, he concludes that the 93,700,000 bbl. of competitive oil will have cost $0.193 per barrel as compared to 85,700,000 bbl. of noncompetitive oil at $0.059 per barrel. The saving of $0.134 per barrel amounts in round figures to $11,500,000, which is 21/2 times the total cost of developing the non-competitive block. The cost for drilling and development of the two areas of 3550 acres which Mr. Knight compares was $18,150,000 under competitive and $4,760,000 under noncompetitive conditions. The estimated ultimate production of the competitive 3550 acres is expected to reach 93,700,000 bbl., or 8,000,000 bbl. above the noncompetitive block. Under ordinary production methods it is to be expected that a noncompetitive area will yield less oil per unit area than will a similar competitive area, because of closer spacing and more rapid extraction in the latter case. The advantage of noncompetitive conditions, in this regard, is that the undivided ownership makes it possible to apply repressuring as a production method fairly early in the life of the field and thus, in the end, to vastly increase the yield. In the particular region described by Mr. Knight, repressuring is not thought to be a factor of

Jan 1, 1931

By H. W. C. Prommel

While Utah remains an unimportant factor in oil production, exploratory drilling was carried on in six widely separated areas, extending from the southwest to the northeast corner of the state. One new gas field, the Last Chance or Starvation Creek anticline in Emery County, and two new gas horizons in the Clay Basin field of Daggett County, were thereby discovered during 1934. Exploratory Drilling South Central Utah Emery County—Last Chance Anticline.—The test of the Ramsey Petroleum Corporation in sec. 18, T.26S., R.7E., on the apex of this anticline (vert. closure 700 ft.; area within closing contour line, as mapped by U.S. Geological Survey, 26,000 acres) encountered gas in the Moenkopi formation of lower Triassic age at depths ranging from 2530 to 2863 ft. The total thickness of sandstone, sandy shale and -limestone beds in which gas was encountered is approximately 50 ft. The well was tested at a depth of 2755 ft., gaging 21,000,000 cu. ft. of gas, R.P. 410 lb. The well is being plugged back to the lowest gas horizon at 2771 ft. from a total depth of 3168 ft. Gas from this well probably will be used for the drilling of a second well structurally lower, to test the oil possibilities of the Moenkopi formation as well as of the upper and lower Pennsylvania formations, of which the latter so far remains untested in South Central Utah. The well was not drilled deep enough to determine more definitely the western margin of the petroliferous Paradox Basin of lower Pennsyl-vanian age of southeastern Utah. Woodside Anticline.—This field, lying immediately northeast of the San Rafael swell, contains, according to maps of the U.S. Geological Survey, 8380 acres within its lowest closing contour line 700 ft. below the apex. A well was drilled by Utah Oil Refining Co. at the apex in sec. 12, T.l9S., R.l3E., during 1924. Gas was encountered in the Moenkopi and Kaibab formations of Triassic and Carboniferous (Permian) age respectively. The flow is estimated at 21,000,000 cu. ft., R.P. 900 lb.,

Jan 1, 1935

By N. Lilienberg

Refractory materials play much the same part in the producion of metals as houses and shelter for men, and it therefore seems useful to discuss sometimes the ways of manufacturing them. In fact, it appears to me that too little has been said on this important matter, probably because the manufacturers of fire-brick do not care to publish details for the benefit of competitors, but perhaps, also, by reason of the indulgent indifference of consumers. Judging from the revolutions in the manafacture of iron and steel caused by using calcareous materials for the furnace-bottoms, it does not seem improbable that in the future basic bricks may be produced suffciently strong for building also side-walls and arches, and perhaps, also, for use in blast-furnaces. But the existence of the present difficulties of great shrinkage in burning and small strength against compression, which limit the possibility of using basic bricks to Bessemer converters and such open-hearth furnaces as permit the bottom to be separated from the superstructure, seems to indicate still a long and extensive use of silica fire-bricks. I am not prepared to say anything about American fire-brick making, but knowing that industries abroad are watched with increasing interest by American manufacturers, I have imagined that this association would like to hear some facts about the way firebricks arc made in my country—Sweden. Well-known as it is that Sweden produces a high quality of iron, it is perhaps not so universally known that the same country produces a very high grade of silica fire-brick, whereby most of its own wants are supplied. In giving the following sketch I can, of course, not claim that all the facts are entirely new, but shall consider my object attained if American manufacturers can derive some benefit from the comparison of the following methods with their own, and if some discussion on this important subject can be aroused which will contribute to further progress. In order to show the extensive use of domestic fire-bricks in Sweden, where English bricks are easily obtainable, I mention the fact that about twelve millions of all kinds of fire-bricks (reduced to

Jan 1, 1885

By C. T. Butler, W. W. Kay, R. D. Boddorff, R. L Ash

DRILLING and blasting in anthracite open-pit mines is a continuous problem to contractors and explosive engineers because of the diverse conditions caused by the nature of the geological formations, the extensive mining of the portions of coal beds near the surface, and the proximity of many strip pits to populated areas. Pennsylvania anthracite occurs in four separate long and narrow fields totaling only 480 sq miles. The coal measures are rock strata and coal beds that are considerably folded and faulted. The crests of the anticlines are eroded extensively. The beds outcrop on the mountain sides and dip under the valleys. At first only the upper portions of the syn-clines could be stripped. Now stripping to increasingly greater depths is economically possible, as is indicated by the fact that the proportion of freshly mined anthracite produced by strip mining has increased from 3.7 pct of the total tonnage in 1930 to 29.6 pct in 1950. Much of the rock overlying the deeper beds now being stripped is so extensively broken that considerable difficulty is experienced in drilling satisfactory blast holes and in using explosives in such manner as to insure a uniformly broken material easily removed by the excavating machinery. Such breaking of rock strata has occurred because the bed now being stripped has been mined extensively in former years by underground methods, and tops of gangways and chambers have subsequently failed. Draglines are used to uncover coal where the overburden can be moved with little or no re-handling. These machines range in size from those having a 2 cu yd capacity bucket on a 60-ft boom to those handling a 25 cu yd bucket on a 200-ft boom. Draglines are also used to strip to the bottom of the coal basins if the depth and the distance between the crops are not too great. For this type of operation blast holes are drilled full depth to the bed. These holes are commonly 30 to 90 ft deep; however, in exceptional cases, holes may be as shallow as 12 ft or as deep as 130 ft. Drilling is normally done for blasts of 12,000 to 60,000 cu yd of overburden, 30,000 cu yd being considered an average blast if vibration is not the controlling factor. Where the stripping of wide basins or the exposure of a moderately pitching vein makes the use of draglines impractical, dipper front shovels equipped with 4 to 6 cu yd buckets load into trucks. Overburden is removed in benches of 25 to 30 ft with blast holes drilled 4 or 5 ft deeper than the planned floor of the bench. For shovels under 5 cu yd bucket capacity the volume blasted varies from 8000 to 12,000 cu yd, whereas a volume of 30,000 to 50,000 cu yd of overburden is frequently blasted at one time for the larger shovels where vibration is not an important factor. During the past decade the churn drill, generally the Model 42-T Bucyrus-Erie blast hole drill equipped for drilling 9-in. diam holes, has become the most common blast hole drilling machine. Electricity powers half the churn drills in use and is preferred on the large strippings where electric shovels are operated and the working area is concentrated. On these operations the cost of additional electricity for the drills is less than the cost of fuel to operate diesel units because of the existing large demand load of the excavating equipment. Moreover, electric motors start more easily in cold weather and generally are less expensive to maintain. Diesel driven units are employed where a higher degree of mobility is required. The average drilling speed is 8 ft per hr, although in softer rocks a rate of 15 ft per hr is attained. Where rock is hard and strata is badly broken, drill speeds may be less than 2 ft per hr. Low drilling production results under these circumstances when loose material falling from the upper portion of the drill holes causes drill stems to be jammed. Rock formations vary so greatly in the region that a 9-in. diam churn drill bit may become dull after drilling only 2 ft or may drill satisfactorily for 56 ft; however, an average of 35 ft is usual in sandstone of medium hardness. Dull bits are hoisted to flat bed trucks by the sand line of the drill and are usually sharpened in the contractor's bit shop adjacent to the job. Care is generally taken to cover the thread end of the bit with a cap. To facilitate handling of bits around the drill, a heavy thread protector having an eye top is becoming more popular than the flat-top rubber or metal cap furnished with new bits. The 9-in. diam blast holes for a 25 to 30 ft bench are normally on 18x18 ft to 20x20 ft spacings, depending on the character of the overburden, although in broken ground 15x18 ft centers may be used to obtain better breakage and a more even bottom for the bench. The patterns of holes for shots

Jan 1, 1953

By R. D. Boddorff, R. L. Ash, C. T. Butler, W. W. Kay

DRILLING and blasting in anthracite open-pit mines is a continuous problem to contractors and explosive engineers because of the diverse conditions caused by the nature of the geological formations, the extensive mining of the portions of coal beds near the surface, and the proximity of many strip pits to populated areas. Pennsylvania anthracite occurs in four separate long and narrow fields totaling only 480 sq miles. The coal measures are rock strata and coal beds that are considerably folded and faulted. The crests of the anticlines are eroded extensively. The beds outcrop on the mountain sides and dip under the valleys. At first only the upper portions of the syn-clines could be stripped. Now stripping to increasingly greater depths is economically possible, as is indicated by the fact that the proportion of freshly mined anthracite produced by strip mining has increased from 3.7 pct of the total tonnage in 1930 to 29.6 pct in 1950. Much of the rock overlying the deeper beds now being stripped is so extensively broken that considerable difficulty is experienced in drilling satisfactory blast holes and in using explosives in such manner as to insure a uniformly broken material easily removed by the excavating machinery. Such breaking of rock strata has occurred because the bed now being stripped has been mined extensively in former years by underground methods, and tops of gangways and chambers have subsequently failed. Draglines are used to uncover coal where the overburden can be moved with little or no re-handling. These machines range in size from those having a 2 cu yd capacity bucket on a 60-ft boom to those handling a 25 cu yd bucket on a 200-ft boom. Draglines are also used to strip to the bottom of the coal basins if the depth and the distance between the crops are not too great. For this type of operation blast holes are drilled full depth to the bed. These holes are commonly 30 to 90 ft deep; however, in exceptional cases, holes may be as shallow as 12 ft or as deep as 130 ft. Drilling is normally done for blasts of 12,000 to 60,000 cu yd of overburden, 30,000 cu yd being considered an average blast if vibration is not the controlling factor. Where the stripping of wide basins or the exposure of a moderately pitching vein makes the use of draglines impractical, dipper front shovels equipped with 4 to 6 cu yd buckets load into trucks. Overburden is removed in benches of 25 to 30 ft with blast holes drilled 4 or 5 ft deeper than the planned floor of the bench. For shovels under 5 cu yd bucket capacity the volume blasted varies from 8000 to 12,000 cu yd, whereas a volume of 30,000 to 50,000 cu yd of overburden is frequently blasted at one time for the larger shovels where vibration is not an important factor. During the past decade the churn drill, generally the Model 42-T Bucyrus-Erie blast hole drill equipped for drilling 9-in. diam holes, has become the most common blast hole drilling machine. Electricity powers half the churn drills in use and is preferred on the large strippings where electric shovels are operated and the working area is concentrated. On these operations the cost of additional electricity for the drills is less than the cost of fuel to operate diesel units because of the existing large demand load of the excavating equipment. Moreover, electric motors start more easily in cold weather and generally are less expensive to maintain. Diesel driven units are employed where a higher degree of mobility is required. The average drilling speed is 8 ft per hr, although in softer rocks a rate of 15 ft per hr is attained. Where rock is hard and strata is badly broken, drill speeds may be less than 2 ft per hr. Low drilling production results under these circumstances when loose material falling from the upper portion of the drill holes causes drill stems to be jammed. Rock formations vary so greatly in the region that a 9-in. diam churn drill bit may become dull after drilling only 2 ft or may drill satisfactorily for 56 ft; however, an average of 35 ft is usual in sandstone of medium hardness. Dull bits are hoisted to flat bed trucks by the sand line of the drill and are usually sharpened in the contractor's bit shop adjacent to the job. Care is generally taken to cover the thread end of the bit with a cap. To facilitate handling of bits around the drill, a heavy thread protector having an eye top is becoming more popular than the flat-top rubber or metal cap furnished with new bits. The 9-in. diam blast holes for a 25 to 30 ft bench are normally on 18x18 ft to 20x20 ft spacings, depending on the character of the overburden, although in broken ground 15x18 ft centers may be used to obtain better breakage and a more even bottom for the bench. The patterns of holes for shots

Jan 1, 1953

By S. R. Goodman, Hsun Hu

The formation of secondary - recrystallization tex-tlires in cube-textured 18-8 stain less steel (Type 304) Ilas been studied at three temperatures. Prolonged annealing at 100°'C protluces a PredoninanGly (520) [OOZJ-type texture, which is related to the cube te.ture of the primary lnatrix by a rotation of approxivzately 22 deg around the [001] axis in the rolling direction. Annealing at 1200 or 1300°C facers the formation of the (123)[272/-type texture, which is related to the matrix texture by a [111] rotation of app.voxiniately 40 deg. These observations suggest that in the secondary recrystallization of cube-texlut-ed stainless steel an apparent actilation energy for growth is higher for grains related to the tncrtuix Og [111] rotations thun those reloted by [100] rotations. THE formation of secondary-recrystallization textures in cube-textured primary matrices of fcc metals has been studied widely by various investigators. For Fe-40 pct Ni alloys, Pawlek' and wassermann2 reported that the orientations of secondary grains were related to the cube texture by rotations of 30 and 38 deg around [001] in the rolling direction. However, Rathenau and custers3 found that, while in one Fe-48 pct Ni alloy, most of the secondary grains were oriented with respect to the cube-textured matrix by rotations around [001] of 26.5 deg, in another alloy of a different origin, the orientations of secondary grains were related to the cube texture by rotations of approximately 35 deg around a [lll] axis. Similar orientation relationships were also observed between the secondary grains and the cube-textured primary matrices of copper.4"a No attempt was made to differentiate these two types of orientation relationships; reorientation by either a [111] or a [100] rotation was considered to be equally favored. The present investigation consisted of a study of the secondary recrystallization textures in cube-textured stainless steel. It was noted that the secondary grains formed in stainless steel were considerably smaller than those of Fe-Ni alloys or copper. This offered the advantage that the secondary recrystallization texture could be determined by the texture-goniometer technique, and a more detailed study of the textural development during the course of secondary recrystallization could be made. The effect of annealing temperature on the formation of secondary-recrystallization textures was also investigated. MATERLAL AND METHOD It was shown earlier"-" that a strong cube texture can be obtained in 18-8 stainless steels by rolling at 800°C to produce the copper-type deformation texture, followed by annealing at 800" to 1000°C for recrystallization. To improve the cube texture for the present study, a commercial-grade 18-8 stainless steel (Type 304) was rolled at 800°C first to 5 mm (0.2 in.) thick plates. Three of these plates were then stacked and welded together along the edges into a sandwich assembly. After annealing at 900°C for 20 min: the assembly was finally rolled at 800'C to 90 pct reduction in thickness with reheats and end-for-end reversals after each pass. Only the central strip, which was reduced from 5.0 to 0.50 mm (0.7 in. to 0.020 in.) thick, was used. The chemical composition of the steel in weight percent was as follows: C, 0.06; Mn, 0.38: Cr, 18.71; Ni, 9.56: P, 0.011; S, 0.009; and Si, 0.39. The purpose of rolling the strip in a sandwich assembly was to prevent direct contact between the central strip and the rolls. It was observed earlier" that, when the strip was rolled at 800°C without being enclosed in a sandwich assembly, the cube texture obtained by subsequent annealing at 900" or 1000° C for recrystallization was largely confined to the central section of the strip, while most of the recrystallized grains formed in the surface section of the strip were not cube-textured. This was obviously due to the fact that the actual temperature at the strip surface during rolling, as a result of direct contact between the strip and the cold and massive rolls, was considerably lower than 800°C. By using a sandwich assembly for hot rolling, the cube texture obtained upon subsequent annealing for recrystallization was found to extend through the entire thickness of the strip. After rolling, the central strip was taken from the sandwich assembly. and cut into specimens. Prior to annealing. the specimens were etched to 0.25 mm (0.010 in.) thick. A tube furnace provided with a purified, dry argon atmosphere was used for annealing. Textures were determined by the reflection technique. using a Siemens automatic texture-goniometer and ZrOz-filtered MoKa radiation. With a time constant of 4 sec. the preferred orientation of the secondary grains could be measured satisfactorily by the integrated intensities. Both (111) and (200) reflections were measured, and corresponding pole figures were constructed according to the techniques described previously.10 The agreement between results deduced from these two reflections was excellent. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION Secondary-Recrystallization Texture due to Prolonged Annealing at 1000°C. Fig. 1 shows the primary-recrystallization texture of a specimen annealed at 1000°C for 30 min. A substantial improvement in both sharpness and intensity of the cube texture, owing to the present processing method, can be noted readily by comparing Fig. 1 with similar pole figures shown earlier in Refs. 9 and 11. Secondary recrystallization

Jan 1, 1967

By C. H. Herty

AN earlier paper on absorption of sulfur by the slag in the basic open-hearth furnace included a brief discussion of the absorption of sulfur during the melting period. The data available at that time showed that the amount of sulfur absorbed by the melting scrap was proportional to the sulfur content of the furnace gases, and the following statement was made: "The conclusion may be drawn from these results that if a gas entirely free from sulfur were used during the melting, any iron in direct contact with the gases would be completely, or nearly completely, desulfurized before it reached the bath proper." The experimental work discussed herein deals with absorption of sulfur by the melting scrap when fuels with both high and low-sulfur content were used. Before taking up the experimental work let us consider the process as a whole as to the "flow" of sulfur. The input of sulfur occurs in: 1, the hot metal charged; 2, the scrap; 3, the stone or lime charged; 4, the ores charged; and 5, the gas. Sulfur goes out of the furnace in the steel, the slag and the gas. The distribution of sulfur in the furnace depends on the sulfur concentration in each of these materials and on the equilibrium conditions between them.

Jan 1, 1926

By W. B. Mather

A SURVEY of the technical literature concerned with oil well drilling methods and particularly with rate of penetration by various cutting media on different types of rock provides a mass of conflicting data. This is especially true with respect to, (1) the relative efficiency of diamond, rotary and percussion drilling operations; (2) the costs of the various types of drilling; and (3) the hardness factor of various types of rock and cutting media. The latter is the particular phase of the subject discussed here. The cause of the confusion may be attributed partially to a lack of 'basic knowledge concerning the physical properties of the cutting media and of individual types of rock. It is also due in part to a general lack of uniform standards in the industry for evaluating the hardness versus drillability of rocks while possible errors in interpretation by the authors of the various papers pertaining to the subject may be an additional cause of misunderstanding. The hardness of a mineral is defined by Dana' as "the resistance which a smooth surface offers to abrasion." Webster' states that hardness is "the cohesion of the particles on the surface of a body (as a mineral) as determined by its capacity to scratch another or be itself scratched." Rock hardness, although not usually defined in publications describing rocks, is assumed to be the same as the minerals which compose the rock or the resistance of the rock to abrasion. Drillability of a rock may be defined arbitrarily as the rate at which rock is penetrated by a definite type of drilling tool with the assistance of a specific type of cutting surface or medium and under speci- fied conditions as to speed of rotation and applications of pressure. Eventually the term penetrability may have to be employed to include any method of making boreholes in rocks, since methods other than those using conventional cutting surfaces are already in operation. A case in point is the jet piercing methoda which employs an oxy-acetylene flame as a means of penetration. The word hardness as used by the drilling fraternity has a variety of meanings which depend upon the type of drilling method employed. For example, in diamond drilling, hardness is interpretated as resistance to abrasion. In percussion drilling the term implies resistance to impact or indentation, while in rotary drilling, hardness is considered anal-agous to compressive strength. The three types of hardness—abrasion, impact and compression—are conflicting variables for different types of rock. Nevertheless, the term hardness is applied indiscriminately by the industry for the resistance of rock to penetration by any type of drilling technique. Abrasion Hardness Since 1818, Moh's scale of hardness, although only relative in nature, has been accepted universally as the method of measuring mineral and therefore rock hardness. In 1933, Ridgway, Ballard and

Jan 1, 1952

By J. D. Price, W. M. Bertholf

Making maximum possible use of available equipment and material, CF&I placed a high-efficiency, high-capacity washery unit in the existing buildings to gain simplified operation, reduced manpower requirements, raised efficiency, and boosted production. THE central washing plant of the Colorado Fuel & Iron Corp. was first operated in 1918 to furnish coal for two 60-oven batteries of Koppers design. Prior to that time the coke for the blast furnaces had been secured from a number of beehive operations, some with their own washeries. The original washery had four Elmore jigs, which did not do as well as had been expected. In 1923 the jigs were taken out and replaced by Deister Plat-O tables, with various changes in auxiliary equipment. In 1936 the throughput of the plant was considerably increased by the installation of vibrating filters for recovery and drying of fine coal, thereby reducing a large recirculating load of fine coal which passed through the screens of the Carpenter driers. In the late 1940's it became evident that something would have to be done to keep the washery abreast of progress at Pueblo and other washeries. Coal requirements were nearly two and one-half times the original requirements of the 120 small ovens, as additional ovens had been built in 1930, 1938, and 1945, whereas no additional coal washing capacity had been added since the 1936 modifications. Much of the equipment, moreover, had seen better days. One answer to the problem was to build a new and completely up-to-the-minute plant, with sep- arate sections for coarse, medium fine, fine, and very fine coal. On the other hand, it might be financially more profitable to place a high-efficiency, high-capacity unit in the existing buildings. The washing problem at Pueblo is not unique, but it is approached differently. There are no established specifications for coke ash and sulphur. The plant is operated on the principle that if it is more economical to wash it out than to slag it out, wash it out; otherwise, send it on to the blast furnaces. With coals at the Pueblo plant costing what they do, the benefits of washing at a low gravity are questionable. Hence the primary problem is to eliminate the high-ash components and retain all the low and medium-ash components. Sulphur is no problem at all, averaging 0.6 pct in the coke. Since a good proportion of the free impurity in the coals is as large as the coal or bone or larger, it appeared that it would be safe to go to jig washing and discontinue crushing the coal before washing, as had been the practice with the tables. This would boost the throughput. It might also decrease manpower requirements and washing costs considerably. It was assumed at the start and has been demonstrated in the first year of operation that a jig will do as well on the fines as the tables had been doing. It would not be necessary to discount any gains due to increased efficiency in washing the coarse material because of incapacity to wash the fines. By washing at —2+0 mesh it would be possible to dewater, by screening, a considerable tonnage satisfactorily, for example, at —2 + % or —2 + l/4, and then crush it in a hammer mill. The —?+20 could be dewatered in centrifugal driers and the remain-

Jan 1, 1955

By C. McCulloch

OPEN-PIT mining of coal is relatively a recent innovation; men still active in the industry can trace its development. Re- viewing the growth of operations from the original horse-drawn scrapers, through the various stages of power equipment to the huge strip- ping shovels of today, one also notes changes in the methods of what the coal man calls preparation at the face. We really should not call it face preparation because, in contrast to underground mining, a face does not exist in strip mining. Further, preparation of the coal for market at the loading point has already, in but a few years, become largely of historic interest only and modern mines as well as old mines recently modernized rely almost entirely on separate and elaborate preparation plants to produce marketable coal. This practice was not voluntarily adopted by the producer but was forced upon him by the inadequacy of previous

Jan 1, 1939

By J. E. Harris

By elimination of other possible nucleation processes, it has been demonstrated, for commercially pure magnesium and a Mg-Al alloy, that at stresses less than that necessary for triple-point cracking creep cavities are most probably nucleated heterogeneously at second-phase particles. Evidence for the existence of such particles is presented and the role of grain boundary sliding in the nucleation process is examined quantitatively. DURING creep deformation of polycrystalline magnesium and its dilute alloys in the temperature range 0.45 to 0.7 Tm (Tm = absolute melting temperature) cavities form mainly along grain boundaries oriented normal to the stress axis and failure eventually occurs by their growth and impingement.' The possibility of low-ductility creep failure of magnesium-alloy reactor cans during service has prompted a number of studies of cavity formation in these materials.2-5 In this paper divergent theories of cavity nucleation6-10 are examined critically and conclusions drawn regarding the most probable mechanism of formation of cavities in magnesium. The paper is divided into two parts. The first section consists of the review and quantitative assessment of the possible role of grain boundary sliding in the nucleation process. In the second part an experimental program is described where an electron-microscope technique has been used to determine if second-phase particles exist in as-received commercially pure magnesium and in a magnesium alloy 1) THEORETICAL REVIEW Possible nucleation sites for creep cavities are: a) high-angle grain boundary triple points,11-14 b) subboundary/grain boundary intersections,15-18 c) ledges in the grain boundary, 19-25 d) second-phase particles. 9,26-30 Each of these possibilities is now considered with special reference to deformation of magnesium. 1.1) Triple-Point Cracking. The stroh31 condition to nucleate fracture is: " > vr [1] where ss = applied shear stress, ? = surface energy, C = shear modulus, L = length of sliding interface. This relationship is independent of the nature of the interface and it is possible to calculate the stress concentration at the end of a sliding high-angle grain boundary and thus deduce, approximately,* the minimum applied stress necessary to nucleate triple-point cracking. Such theoretical predictions for Nimonic alloys have been made by McLean13 and found to agree quite closely with the minimum stress determined by experiment. Stresses capable of nucleating triple-point cracking should also be sufficient to nucleate fracture at a grain boundary due to intragranular slip, for the lengths of sliding interface in the two cases are approximately equal. Thus the minimum stress for triple-point cracking should represent a demarcation between failure due to general "cracking" and that due to cavitation. Hauser, Landon, and Dorn32 have demonstrated that for polycrystalline magnesium in the temperature range 78° to 298°K the fracture stress is inversely proportional to the square root of the mean grain diameter. As pointed out by stroh31 this result indicates that Eq. [I] describes the fracture characteristics of magnesium at low temperatures. Heal3 has reported that for rapid deformation (112 pct hr-1) of polycrystalline magnesium the transition from cracking to cavitation occurs in the temperature range 175" to 275°C. He also presented the fracture-stress values for the same material tested under similar conditions. From Eq. [I] taking G = 1.3 x 10" dynes , ? = 600 ergs . cm-2,33 and L = 0.017 cm, a Stroh-McLean13,31 tensile stress of -266 kg. cm-2 is calculated, corresponding to a transition temperature of -190°C; this is in

Jan 1, 1965

THE transformation, in a sample of levitation melted iodide titanium, has been studied with a Leitz hot-stage microscope. The specimen was etched in HF:HNO3: glycerine, (1:1:2) giving a structure shown in Fig. 1, and was then heated at approximately 5OC per min. At 870°C (±5OC) the etching product disappeared, the a-grain boundaries showed in relief, and some new grain boundaries (presumably of ß) appeared (Fig. 2, see arrow). Some evidence of ß-grain growth is indicated by the apparent longitudinal movement of a ß-grain boundary shown in Figs. 2 and 3 (see arrows). The specimen was later heated to 1000°C and then cooled at 2°C per min. At 845°C rumpling of the surface was first noticed, Fig. 4, and continued at constant temperature. The photomicrograph reproduced in Fig. 5 was taken 6 sec after Fig. 4, at 845°C. Fig. 6 shows the structure after cooling to room temperature. The room-temperature structure, showing a rumpled surface has been observed by previous investigators.' These structures presumably indicate a sheer transformation ß - a, athermally nucleated, but capable of isothermal progression.

Jan 1, 1960